Peter Weiss

Kai Evers (University of California, Irvine)

Ed. by Gerhard P. Knapp, University of Utah
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.4.1: German-language Writing and Culture: Germany, 500-present.
Vol. editors: Gerhard P. Knapp (University of Utah), Jennifer Marston William (Purdue University), Herbert Rowland (Purdue University), Jill E. Twark (East Carolina University)

Dates

Born 8 Nov 1916
Died 10 May 1982
Activity 1936-1982

Places

Born in Germany
Active in Germany; Sweden

Activities

Primary

Novelist
Playwright / Dramatist

Other

Autobiographer
Essayist
Painter
Political writer

Resources

Peter Weiss is regarded as one of the few major European authors of his generation. A central figure in the German-Jewish literary tradition, he was among the first and most important writers to address the horrors of the Holocaust. His early autobiographical texts Abschied von den Eltern [Leavetaking, 1962] and Fluchtpunkt [Vanishing Point, 1963] are modern German classics. His opus magnum, the three-part Die Ästhetik des Widerstands [The Aesthetics of Resistance, 1975-81], an epic roman d'essai about the antifascist resistance movement from the late thirties to 1947, is acknowledged today as a towering achievement in German literature. With the international success of his plays Marat/Sade (1964) and Die Ermittlung [The Investigation, 1965], Weiss became a leading playwright in the post-Brechtian era. Die Ermittlung is still the most influential play on the Holocaust in German. It...

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3158 words

Citation: Evers, Kai. "Peter Weiss". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 05 October 2004 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5467, accessed 09 June 2026.]